Analysis of Mathematics Instruction in Inclusive Settings: A Report

This report reviews the study on Korean elementary school teachers' implementation of mathematics instruction in inclusive settings, focusing on students with learning difficulties. The review analyzes the perceptions of general education (GE) and special education (SE) teachers regarding inclusive education, instructional materials, grouping methods, and confidence levels in various mathematical topics. The study, conducted through online surveys, reveals that both GE and SE teachers generally support inclusive education. However, GE teachers primarily use whole-class grouping and textbooks, while SE teachers employ individualized methods. Both groups show limited use of technology. GE teachers express higher confidence in some mathematical topics compared to SE teachers. The report connects these findings to classroom practices, emphasizing the importance of understanding teacher perspectives and implementing inclusive mathematical instruction. The report concludes by suggesting improvements in teacher training programs to enhance the quality of inclusive mathematics instruction.

Review of “Korean elementary school teachers’ implementation of mathematics
instruction for students struggling to learn mathematics in inclusive settings”
In the current article, the authors have discussed the issues coming in implementation
of instructions to students facing difficulties in mathematics in inclusive set ups. It is noted
that approximately 15% (1 billion) of population faces some form of disability. The
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has identified and highlighted on the
importance of inclusion of everyone in the social setups. This has reportedly brought an
increase in inclusion rates of students with disability, world over, including The Republic of
South Korea. In this context, I feel it is important to analyse how teachers implement
inclusion in their teaching practices. The authors of the given study have demarcated students
with disabilities in mathematics and those with learning difficulties in order to identify and
understand the issues coming in learning mathematics, a little better. They did a review of
the works performed by previous researchers. One of the studies surveyed the perceptions of
general education(GE) elementary school teachers about students with mathematics learning
disabilities and their findings suggested that partaking teachers perceived that approximately
1.64% of the students in their classes had learning disabilities in mathematics. Another survey
was conducted on the perceptions of GE elementary school teachers concerning inclusive
education and implementation of mathematics instruction for students with disabilities. In this
survey, teacher’s showed uncertain views on inclusive education. Moreover, the most
frequently implemented instructional grouping method was “whole-group instruction” and
instructional material was “textbooks”. They also found limited use of technology by the
teachers.
In the present work, the authors have worked on and extended a previous work. They
have designed a study to gauge the differences between special education (SE) and GE
elementary teachers’ perceptions. They conducted an online survey, as a tool, on 55 GE and

38 SE teachers of elementary schools across South Korea. The results were then analysed for
the following points i) How is inclusive education perceived, ii) utilisation of instructional
materials and instructional grouping, iii) use of instructional practices and iv) confidence
level in mathematics topics. One of the first outcomes of their study was that the teachers
from both the groups showed affirmative attitude towards inclusive education which is
consistent with some of the previous findings. Secondly, GE teachers used whole-class
grouping whereas SE teachers used individualised grouping method more frequently. Third
finding was that both groups of teachers seldom used communication and information
devices like tablets and smartphones. Finally, the teachers from both groups reported to have
confidence in 7 out of 14 mathematical topics but in rest of the 7 topics GE teachers had
much higher confidence than SE teachers. With regards to our classroom, the findings seem
consistent as most of our teachers use blackboard and textbooks as instruction materials and
have a positive attitude towards inclusive education. This is in accordance with the first and
third findings of this study. In this context, I agree with the authors’ view that it is important
to understand how GE and SE teachers perceive inclusion and implement inclusive
mathematical instruction practices. To improve the quality of inclusive mathematics
instruction, SE teachers’ preparation should include mathematics courses and GE teachers’
programme should educate students to accommodate students with disabilities.